Altenrhein (ship)
Altenrhein and Manzell next to the Thu X. Photo: KA Ziegler
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The Altenrhein was a motorboat made by Dornier Werke Altenrhein in the canton of St. Gallen , Switzerland . It was named after the town of Altenrhein , near which the Old Rhine flows into Lake Constance .
history
Some of the pictures of the Dornier Do X flying boat , which was then the largest airplane in the world with twelve engines, which were widely circulated by the international press in 1929/1930 , also made the Altenrhein and her sister ship Manzell known. They are now largely forgotten, although at least one is still in operation. The photographs of the Dornier works photographer Karl Alfred Ziegler (1892–1967) in the St. Gallen State Archives (StASG) provide some information about the use of these boats around 1930.
The Dornier Flugzeugwerft in Altenrhein put the Altenrhein into service in 1928 under the Dornier factory designation "internal means of transport" and "motorboat for flight service". Ziegler referred to it as a motor tug boat, shipyard support boat or simply a motor boat. Pictures also show them as a feeder boat for Do-X passengers and for transporting customers or visitors to the shipyard. One of the boats is always named by Ziegler as “St.G. 72 Altenrhein ”, the other, the Manzell from Dornier-Metallbauten GmbH in Manzell , only as an“ identical motorboat ”. The fore deckers had no superstructures, but a cabin in the foredeck that extended over the entire width of the ship and about half the length of the ship to the open steering position . The stern was almost completely open, with two benches along the white board walls and towing equipment on the stern. The transom was slightly bent vertically. The "motorboat bodies" were built in 1927 by the Bodan shipyard in Kressbronn on Lake Constance according to plans submitted by Franz Zeno Diemer (Dornier). Dornier also provided the Maybach S1 engine with an output of 65 hp. With the slim hull and high bow, they resembled the fast and elegant commuter yachts of the US east coast in the 1920s.
The two motorboats were first documented in the StASG image archive in July 1929 in connection with the early flights of the Do X1 and then several times until 1931. After the Do X1 was decommissioned in 1933, the track of the Altenrhein's sister ship was lost . August 1939 was shown again in the port of the Dornier shipyard and again in 1955 during the recovery of a P-16 prototype from Flug- und Fahrzeugwerke Altenrhein (FFA), successor to Dornier Werke Altenrhein, which crashed off Horn SG in Lake Constance .
The motorboat control card for the annual inspections kept and archived at the Rorschach Shipping Office from 1938 to 1960 shows that it was shut down in the war years from 1940 to 1944. From 1948 the FFA owned the Altenrhein . After a no longer known use and further shutdown, restoration work began after 1990, which was successfully completed almost twenty years later: The 88-year-old motor yacht still carries the original name, but with a deck structure like the Widgeon and 90 hp marine diesel now from the home port of Mulhouse on the Rhine, its tributaries and canals.
| Altenrhein dates: | ||
|---|---|---|
| Year of construction: 1928 | Length: 15.00 m | Engine: Maybach, 6 cylinder |
| Shipyard: Bodan shipyard, Kressbronn | Width: 2.80 m | Engine power: 65 hp |
| Commissioning: 1928 | Draft: 1.53 m | Capacity: 20 people |
| Home port: Altenrhein | Tonnage: 7.0 tons | Whereabouts: private motor yacht, Mulhouse |
The information is based on the motorboat control card from the Rorschach Shipping Office, as of 1960, according to information from October 2015 and the current owner.
See also
Web links
- The dream of your own scheduled ship on marina.ch, Switzerland's nautical magazine, April 2011.
- Dornier Museum and Archive in Friedrichshafen
- "Historic MS" Altenrhein "is being renovated" in vorarlberg.orf.at
Footnotes
- ↑ Dornier Werft picture archive
- ^ Passengers on the Do-X record flight
- ↑ The Manzell of Dornier-Metallbauten GmbH
- ↑ A copper gravure after a painting by Michael Zeno Diemer shows the Manzell 1928 very well in front of a large flying boat Dornier Super Wal .
- ↑ File of the Commission No. 2018/5 of the Bodan shipyard in the economic archive Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart (inventory: Y21, Bü 2018/51)
- ↑ For comparison: the 46-foot commuter yacht Widgeon
- ^ Altenrhein on August 1, 1939
- ↑ [ The Altenrhein during the P-16 recovery in 1955. ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) The Altenrhein during the P-16 recovery in 1955.]
